In Our Name
Iraqi Intellectuals in Solidarity with al-Adab Journal[1]
The
Fakhri Karim
Wali, a senior advisor to the President in the occupied Iraq, had filed a libel
suit against al-Adab, Idriss, and Matraji, as a result of an editorial
entitled: “Critique of ‘Critical’ Consciousness: Iraqi Kurdistan as a Case
Study” (Issue 5 - 6, 2007).
We, the
undersigned Iraqi intellectuals who have experienced the intellectual ordeal in
the shadow of despotic rule and who continue to contest the ‘liberalism’ of the
new occupation, protest this unjust verdict against al-Adab and its
editor-in-chief and manager. In solidarity with al-Adab, we have decided to
re-publish in full the editorial, subject of the above mentioned unjust
lawsuit, thus announcing our solidarity with its every word and with its
mission to expose the fraudulent left, the apologists for occupation, the
advisors to the President, and the enemies of freedom; we also affirm our faith
in al-Adab as an ally to the Iraqis and a supporter of a free, independent and
pluralistic Iraq, that resists occupation and Zionism.
April 20,
2010.
1- Ibrahim
Baqir, engineer,
2- Ahmed
al Nasiri, writer,
3- Baqir
Ibrahim, writer,
4- Tareq
Ismael, academic,
5- Tahrir
Nouman, human rights activist,
6- Hareth
al Naqib, political activist,
7- Hussam
al Din al-Naeif, poet,
8- Jassim
al Rassif, writer,
9- Jamal
Mohamed Taki, writer,
10- Sami Hassan, writer,
11-
Salam Musafir, journalist &
presenter,
12-
Sufyan al Khazraji, writer,
13-
Saad Abdul Rahim, writer,
14-
Sana Al-Khayyat, sociologist,
15-
Salih Hussain ( Abu Sara), writer,
16-
Sabah al Shahir, writer & journalist,
17-
Sabah al Mosawy, writer,
18-
Sabah Ziyara al Mosawy, writer,
19-
Khair Allah Saeed, writer,
20-
Abdul Amir Qasim, writer,
21-
Issam Al-Khayyat, lecturer,
22-
Abdul Kareem al Ghaban, economist,
23-
Alaa al lami, writer & journalist,
24-
Ali Amer, academic,
25-
Imad al Taei, writer,
26-
Imad Khadduri, scientist,
27-
Kadhim Mohamed, writer,
28-
Kifah Mohamed, writer,
29-
Kamal Majid, academic & writer,
30-
Laith al Hamdani, journalist,
31-
Mohamed al Saadi, writer,
32-
Mahoud al Bayati, writer & novelist,
33-
Majid al Jameel, journalist,
34-
Mahmoud Said, novelist,
35-
Miqdam Sabir, writer & journalist, Baghad
36-
Mundher al Adhami, Academic & writer,
37-
Nazar Rahak, writer,
38-
Nazmi al Obaidi, physician,
39-
Wisam Jawad, writer,
40-
Wadhah Abdul Aziz, political activist,
41-
Haifa Zangana, writer,
Critique
of ‘Critical’ Consciousness:
Iraqi
-
Samah
Idriss
One of the
worst aspects of Arab cultural press and media has been criticism, in the name
of “modern critical consciousness,” of backward traditional structures, Arab
belief in the supernatural, nationalist tyrannical authorities, Islamic
obscurantism, and despotic left…coupled with great praise for the (Saudi)
Wahhabi[3]
and (Lebanese) Junblati moderation,[4]
Egyptian flexibility, Palestinian pragmatism, Western rationalism, and so on.
Thus we read
Adonis [the Syrian poet and essayist]
criticizing "rigid" structures and Arab fundamentalisms in an
orientalist mode based on anecdotal generalities (a la Rafael Patai
occasionally), to find out later that he is fronting an entire book on the
thoughts of Imam Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, choosing its texts and prefacing
it (with Dr. Khalida Sa’id), as part of a series entitled "The Renaissance
Series: Studies and Texts Representing a New Vision of the Arab
Renaissance" (Beirut: Dar al-‘Ilm Li Almalayin, 1983). This was,
therefore, how Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab, a dogmatic thinker, was transformed by a
symbol of modernity (Adonis) into a pioneer of the Arab Renaissance![5]
By way of
further example, though on a much lower intellectual level, we see Shakir
al-Nabulsi[6],
having emphatically divorced Marxism and Nationalism, praising the “poetry”
(yes, poetry!) of Prince Khalid Al- Faysal of Saudi Arabia, and even presenting
him as one of the "pioneers" of Modernism and Arab thought.[7]
I have also
previously noted how a number of modernist intellectuals in
Needless to
say, every person has the right to praise whoever he or she deems worthy of
praise. But to render [the multi-millionaire] R. Hariri "a poet of
places" (according to the modernist poet, Paul Shawul, in "Stay at
Home" programme on the Al-Mustaqbal Satellite Channel, winter of 2005);
and to describe the same person as a “post-modernist” intellectual that
possesses “complex, creative, multi-faceted thinking" (in the words of Ali
Harb, an advocate of ‘transformative thought’ and a deconstructive critic of
the “illusions of the elite,” on the same channel), would certainly raise doubts
regarding the very modernist ideas those intellectuals have been
expounding for decades. Such writings in fact could nurture in the readers’
minds fundamentalist and traditional thought which those same eulogisers had
spent decades opposing (at times with great zeal). Imagine someone listening to
liberal modernists praising Saudi "moderation" after cursing Ba’thist
despotism: Wouldn’t he or she be inclined to support
In other
words, if modernists, deconstructive “transformers,” and conscious critics
applaud Wahhabism, Harirism and Mubarakism, why wouldn’t "ordinary"
readers be drawn towards the object of acclaim rather than the acclaimer; to
the celebrated rather than the celebrator; to the original rather than the
copy?
Of course,
this intellectual shift did not occur spontaneously. Rather, it is the result
of decades of Arab defeats; of the left’s decline; of official Arab and Western
awards to Arab intellectuals; of Arab and Western "receptions," first
class travel tickets and five stars hotels. Such a shift has also been
associated, in recent years, with tedious theorising against what neo-liberals
describe as “empty rhetoric,” a term that is empty rhetoric itself, as Azmi
Bishara[8]
once wrote. For, how can they describe an Arab regime like Saudi Arabia as
moderate, when it allies itself with the most horrific mass murderer on earth
(the USA), represses human rights, especially the rights of women and
minorities and freedom of expression?[9] And what credibility do the
"moderates," "realists" and "pragmatists" have
when they insist on the two-state solution (Palestinian and Israeli) if the
bases of a Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza have been eradicated due
to the Zionist brutality? What credibility have the critics of Saddam Hussein
and his mass graves (the latter as horrendous as the former) when they praise
Talabani and Barzani?
Here I come to
the crux of the matter, since Iraqi Kurdistan offers a perfect case study of
the emptiness (hollowness) of the "empty rhetoric" itself. It shows
the basic contradictions of the neo-liberals (let us call them: the neo-conservatives),
or more precisely, their apathetic attitude to analyse and demystify the
illusions of the new “Iraqi” democracy, after having published hundreds of
articles cursing Saddam's
* * *
Between April
29 and May 6, 2007, the fifth Mada Cultural Week took place in Arbil, the
capital of the Kurdish region in
Aside from
such exceptions, however, media coverage of the festival failed to accurately
depict the state of affairs in
Now I am not claiming this was a deliberate
conspiracy against truth. (Like yourselves, I am no fan of harping on about conspiracy
theories-not that I do not think they exist, but because they have been staring
us in the eye). What this reveals, however, is a chronic laziness on the part
of Arab journalism in general. Thus it seems sufficient for a journalist to
read a poem or two by a great Kurdish poet such as Sherko Bekes,[12]
or learn a couple of Kurdish words such as (Kakeh/brother and Mam/uncle), or
read an article about Saddam’s crimes, and all of a sudden he or she can write
like experts on the Kurdish region and on the whole of Iraq! Allow me to ask
you, colleagues: Where is the critical mind with which you have been pounding
our heads for years? Do you really know how things are in the Kurdish region?
Do you know about Kurdish women’s status and honour killings? Do you know about
the Israeli Mossad’s activity in the region? Do you know about the conditions
in Kurdish prisons? Freedom of expression? Arbitrary arrests? Do you know how
the Kurdish region became, if true, a “safe haven” in
I am aware
that you are too busy with other persistent daily activities. Thus, I have done
some quick reading to fill the gaps you’ve left. Below, I will outline a
summary of what I have read – not as a way to convey the full truth, rather as
a way to uncover aspects that go beyond the naive press reports, which suggest
that there is economic development in Kurdistan simply because “president”
Talabani said that Suliaymania [in the Kurdish region] now has one thousand
millionaires as opposed to six during Saddam’s rule![13] Moreover, these reports hail democracy simply
because Talabani said that
On the role
of Israel in Kurdistan – Iraq: In June 2004, American journalist Seymor Hersh wrote
in the New Yorker about Israelis in Northern Iraq, dressed up in
business suits, in order to recruit Kurdish agents to collect information in
preparation for a possible Israeli–American operation against Iran. Last
summer, Israeli Haaretz reported that Shlomi Michaels, an Israeli, was
interrogated because his work in Kurdistan was led without
The
representatives of the Kurdish government do not deny Israeli presence in
Kurdistan, though they claim it is only related to the private sector (as if
this is a simple matter).This is what President Jalal Al-Talabini’s son, the
representative of the Kurdish government in Washington, admitted to Laura
Rozen, bragging that Kurdistan will be “the gateway to Iraq.”
But whose
gateway, we ask?
As for Arbil,
where Arab journalists went to cover the Mada festival, there is a Mossad
office. The Mossad’s former Arbil station chief, Eliezer Geizi Tsafrir,
admitted to reporter Rozen that the office has helped the Kurdish intelligence
and Mulla Mustafa Al-Barazani: “They [the Kurds] approached us, saying
they had nobody to help them in the world, and our people had suffered too. We
supplied them with cannons, guns, anti-air equipment, all sorts of equipment,
and even lobbying. The contacts between us, and the sympathy, will last for
generations to come.”
We are told
that Kurdistan–Iraq is an oasis for democracy and human rights. Let us, then,
examine this claim promptly. For, what we have seen from the above is that it
is, unfortunately, an oasis for Israeli businessmen and Mossad’s agents (and
CIA agents of course) against neighbouring countries, and against the Iraqi
people itself.
Human
Rights and Women Rights in Iraqi
A United
Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) report, dated April 2007, has a
special section on monitoring human rights abuses in the northern area of Iraq
covering the early months of 2007. The report states that there are “serious
concerns” on the questions of freedom of expression, [arbitrary] arrests, and
the social status of women in the Kurdish area.
While
officials of the Kurdish Regional Government that rules over Arbil, Suliaymania
and Duhouk provinces deny the existence of such abuses, Kurdish activists in
Arbil (where al Mada Festival was held)
say that the UNAMI report was far too lenient and did not mention all
human rights violations, only the “prominent and outstanding ones.” Rebin Rasul
Ismael, a Kurdish human rights activist from Arbil, believes
that "the current reality shows that human rights conditions (here) are
very bad, and I am not optimistic about the future of human rights in Kurdistan
and
The UNAMI
report focused on three aspects of human rights violations: 1) Honour killings;
2) conditions of detainees; and 3) freedom of expression.
On honour killings the report mentions that in
Arbil province alone, under “increasing pressure from male members of the family,”
358 Kurdish women have “burnt themselves to death since 2003” (Did the
Mada Festival’s guests visit the graves of any of these women?) and 218 others
“attempted to do so.” This means that if indeed democracy exists in Arbil, it
has not yet reached Kurdish women, without whose total liberation (as Arab
modernist intellectuals rightly claim) there can be no democracy.
On the
question of prisoners, especially those suspected of “terrorism,” the UNAMI
report accuses the Kurdish local authorities of “torturing and
ill-treating detainees.” The report asserts that “many
have been held for prolonged periods without any charge.” Mr.
Ismael, the aforementioned Kurdish activist, commented on this issue saying: “You
cannot hold people behind bars for a couple of years just on suspicion of
posing a threat to the political or social system.”
As to the
“relative freedom of expression,” the report brings into question the veracity
of the claims of the Kurdish officials: “Several journalists
have been arrested by security services over the past few years. Others have
been threatened or beaten by unknown persons.” Firhad ‘Awni, the
head of Kurdistan Journalists’ Syndicate, said: “We have a feeling that
sometimes journalists are subjected to the political mood of the security
services."
On the subject of human rights one
must not forget the plight of Arabs in the Kurdish region (does this issue not
concern the visiting Arab intellectuals?). Some reports refer to 150,000 Iraqi
Arabs displaced in the Kurdish region, and how Kurds do not forget the
oppression they suffered under Saddam (an Arab), hence their hatred for Arabs.
Many non-Kurdish Iraqis feel “like second class citizens,” as reveals Wala’
Matti, an Assyrian employee in a hotel in Arbil who fled from
Responsibility
for the destruction of Iraqi Kurdistan
It seems that
the memory of neo-liberal Arab journalists has waned in the last two decades,
thus forgetting who destroyed many parts of Iraqi Kurdistan. The fact is: Major
parts were destroyed during the Iran-Iraq war (1980-1988), which was indeed
launched by Saddam Hussein but encouraged and supported financially and
military by the US and its faithful Arab regimes in the Gulf and its allies
beyond.[19]
In 1991, the
If some Arab
intellectuals have forgotten all these facts since they occurred long time ago,
did they also forget that it was Talabani himself who, a couple of months into
the invasion of
But is it
really a matter of lapsed memory? Well,
Saadi Yuseef tells us about the attempt of President Talabani to bribe Iraqi
intellectuals living abroad, in order to prevent them from playing their
critical role. This reminds us of Saddam Hussein’s attempts to do the same, but
probably with far more money assigned to this project. Yuseef talks of cultural
associations and unions which have been established in
Fakhry
Karim
Finally, did
the attending guests who went on to hail the achievements of “the Kurdish
democracy,” know who Fakhry Karim, the Mada Festival’s organiser, is?
The Internet
is clogged up with articles written regularly about this publisher colleague,
many of which are in Arabic, just in case our intellectuals and journalists do
not know other languages. If they still do not know how to use the internet
(and this is doubtful indeed), it would suffice to contact any honest veteran
Iraqi communist, true to the principles of Comrade Fahd, the founder of the
Iraqi Communist party (ICP), in order to find out what happened to the ICP’s
funds gathered from students, poor people and families of the party’s martyrs,
in addition to the funds allocated for Al-Nahj magazine and Al-Mada
publishing house. Perhaps those guests should have also investigated the links
between some old/new Iraqi “communists” and Saddam’s secret services in the
sixties and seventies, as well as the secret services of Arab countries, the
***
We in the Arab
world are living a real tragedy not only because we are living under oppressive
regimes, compounded with imperialist’s designs and Zionist schemes, but also
because of a major setback in genuine critical consciousness. Charlatan
intellectuals practice double standards, by being selective in their critique,
thus criticising one oppressor while turning a blind eye to another. Before
2003 they condemned both dictatorship and occupation; however, as soon as the
dictatorship was replaced by occupation, they fell silent and now only
criticise the already demised dictatorship. One of the “intellectual” attendees
of Mada Festival, which took place in
To hell with
this freedom that has in the last four years devoured the lives of 700,000
innocent Iraqis, allowed the Mossad to infiltrate Iraq, caused internal
division and strife, an increase in honour killings, and the deterioration of
Iraqi human rights and freedom of expression in the ‘liberated” part of Iraq
itself.
And to hell
with this phoney critical consciousness!
[1] AL-ADAB journal was established in 1953 by the late Lebanese intellectual Suhayl Idris. It is considered one of the most influential literary publications in the Arab world. It is currently published six times a year, and includes files on politics, poetry, novels, cinema and public culture. Its current editor is Samah Idris, a writer and author.
[2] This text has been translated and edited from Arabic by Ali Issa, Nofa Khadduri, Namir Shabibi and Tahrir Nouman.
[3] Wahabism
is a name given to followers of Imam Muhammad bin Abd al-Wahhab, an
18th-century scholar who was born in Najd (
[4] Junblatism, a term that refers to Walid Junblat, the leader of PSP (Progressive Socialist Party). He has been known for shifting positions every now and then: From pro-Syria to anti-Syria (and pro-Bush) and back again to being pro-Syria, from anti-privatization to pro-privatization and again to the old position, only in the last 5 years following the assassination of Rafiq al-Hariri. He is a symbol of opportunism in politics and the public sphere in general.
[5]
Sabri hafiz, “O
[6] Shakir
al-Nabulsi is a Palestinian literary critic who was very pro- resistance in
[7] NBN Lebanese satellite T.V interview with Shakir al Nabulsi, who has of late described himself as “liberal” (first week of May 2007).
[8] A Palestinian politician who was a member of the Israeli Knesset from 1996 until resigning in April 2007. He is the author of many books and numerous articles dealing with nationalism, Islam, democracy, the Palestinian issue, and minority rights.
[9] Azmi Bishara, “ Empty Rhetorics Being itself an Empty Rhetoric,” Al-Akhbar, 2/4/2007.
[10] Ahmad Bazzun, “ Talabani in a Meeting with Arab Intellectuals,” Al-Safir, 4 May 2007.
[11]
Wa’il Abd al-Fattah, “We Went to
[12] Some of his best poems, entitled The container of colours, were translated from Kurdish into Arabic by Shahoo Said and published by Dar Al-Adab in 2002.
[13] Al-Safir, 9 May 2007, P 18.
[14] Abd Alrahman Munif, Al Tariq Magazine, Issue 6, 1991, P 101.
[15] Laura
Rozen, “
[16] Mohammed
A. Salih, “
[17] Andrew
Lee Butters, “Kurdistan:
[18] ibid.
[19] Husayn
Al-Kurdi, “The CIA in
[20] www.iris.org.il/bt09/archives/2335-The Great Circle-of-Enmity.html
[21] Husayn Al-Kurdi, op.cit
[22]
Saadi Yuseef, “Bring Jalal Talabani to International Criminal Court at
[23] Saadi Yuseef, “ The Colonial Deployment of Iraqi Intellectuals in the Diaspora” October 2 2006¡ www.saadiyousif.com/Syasa/21.html
[24] The poet Abbas Baydhun in a statement which was distributed on line by Iraqi opposing groups.